1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a remote commander accessible to an address on a network, and to a network connecting system with employment of this remote commander.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Currently, personal computers are popularized to be widely used in various fields such as offices and homes. Moreover, personal computers are used as terminals accessible to various types of networks, e.g., a so-called "PC-communication network" and the Internet via modems and terminal adapters (TA) of ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network).
For instance, when a user wishes to acquire information stored at a preselected address on the Internet network, an address code (URL; Uniform Resource Locators) is entered by using, e.g., a keyboard and a mouse to access this information, while employing a retrieving/displaying software, a so-called "browser". An URL address code is expressed by, for example, a protocol name (file classification, e.g., http (hypertext transport protocol), Gopher, ftp (file transfer protocol)), and a domain name (sort of host, e.g., www (Word Wide Web); organization name,e.g., SONY; sort of organization, e.g., co (corporate) e.g., go (government); and country code,e.g., jp (Japan)). This address code may be represented as follows:
http://www.sony.co.jp
It should be understood that a combination between a sort of organization and a country code will be explained as an identifier name in the specification.
As previously described, since such an URL address code is entered to access the Internet network, the data stored at the address corresponding to this URL address code may be read out and may be displayed on a monitor apparatus. However, in the case that personal computers are employed as terminals to access networks, environment setting operations are necessarily carried out in accordance with specifications of hardwares under use with respect to each of personal computers.
Under such a circumstance, television receivers having functions for allowing access to networks such as the Internet are known in this field (simply referred to as an "Internet TV" hereinafter). This type of Internet TV is constituted as a multimedia available television receiver. This multimedia TV is designed in such a way that even any users other than personal computer users can readily access networks.
That is to say, in an Internet TV, a modem and a TA (terminal adaptor) are previously assembled, and further a browser software is pre-installed to perform operation environment setting. As a consequence, every user can readily access networks without any cumbersome setting operations.
On the other hand, users are also required to input URL address codes in Internet TVs by connecting keyboards, mouses, and the like to the Internet TVs so as to enter characters. To this end, while the URL code input screen functioning as "browser" is constituted, desirable characters are selected to be entered by employing a remote commander and the like.
FIG. 1 schematically represents one conventional Internet television receiver 50 with pre-installed browser software, capable of selectively displaying a television broadcast program and a video input in response to selecting operation by users. In this drawing, a browser 52, and an URL input section are displayed on a display unit 51 constructed of, for instance, a CRT (cathode-ray tube). This browser 52 is capable of displaying data acquired from an accessed network.
On this browser 52, the following items are displayed, for instance, an icon group 53 where an alphabet is displayed as an icon; page selecting arrows 54 and 55 for changing the display mode of the icon group 53 into, e.g., numerals; an URL display section 56 for displaying thereon characters selected by the icon group 53; an enter icon 57 for transmitting the URL displayed on the URL display section 56 to a server; and a pointer 58 for selecting the above-described icons.
A remote commander 59 is capable of performing the normal manipulation of the television receiver, and further is equipped with a joystick 59a and the like, by which positional information may be entered. Thus, the pointer 58 may be moved in response to a command (positional information) transmitted by inputting the positional information via this joystick 59a, so that a desirable icon may be selected.
However, in this conventional Internet TV 50, the larger the number of characters of the URL address code is increased, the more the character input operation for entering the characters one by one becomes cumbersome. Also, in such a case that the protocol name, the host name, and the identifier name for constituting the URL address code are commonly used, when the user newly accesses the Internet network, the user must enter the characters one by one, resulting in cumbersome input operation.
The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problems in the conventional Internet TV system, and therefore, has an object to provide a remote commander capable of effectively entering an address such as an URL address code, and also a network connecting system with employment of this improved remote commander.